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The first European to discover Monterey Bay was Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo on November 16, 1542 while sailing northward along the coast on a Spanish naval expedition. He originally named the bay Bahía de los Pinos,[1] probably because of the forest of pine trees first encountered while rounding the peninsula at the southern end of the bay.[2]

The present name for the bay was documented in 1602 by Sebastián Vizcaíno, who had been tasked by the Spanish government to complete a detailed chart of the coast. He anchored in what is now the Monterey Harbor on December 16, and named it Puerto de Monterey, in honor of the Conde de Monterrey, then viceroy of New Spain.[1] Monterrey is an alternate spelling of Monterrei, a municipality in the Galicia region of Spain from which the viceroy and his father (the Fourth Count of Monterrei) originated.